Allan, I think your treatise on inter-system travel holds a lot of weight. It is unlikely we will ever achieve any sort of propulsion system enabling us to bend space-time and ‘warp’ behind the stars.

However the Elephant in the room is not Star Trek but The Expanse. Whilst it’s hardly a utopian vision of the future it does represent a future where necessity breeds innovation and humanity is able to populate our own backyard.

Discounting the discovery of alien technology, the political backdrop of Earth in a Cold War with Mars and the miners of the Asteroid Belt as a downtrodden underclass is very realistic and the use of technology at least fits current curves.

It is highly likely that over the next two centuries we will have achieved at least something approaching this scenario.